Is it possible for a writer to build her brand without damaging her soul? — Taking the author photo for my debut memoir, Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, was an unfortunately vital moment in my career. Thanks to social media, how an author looks — sometimes euphemized as their “brand” — has never held more weight. Even as a cis, white…

25 Practical Tips From a Buddhist Monk — Nearly everyone I talk to feels despair over the state of the world right now. If you’re a person who cares, you likely feel pervasive anxiety about the many, many, many important problems you can’t control or entirely solve. That leads to an understandable sense of overwhelm, existential dread, resignation…

An incomplete but hopefully-helpful list of ideas — The reasons why we need to abolish the for-profit prison system are manifold and more complex than I feel qualified to flush out here. To understand why our prison system is inhumane, racist, and needs to be abolished, you need to first educate yourself. (More on how to do that…

A quick guide to being a good literary citizen — In a recent article called “12 Publishing Industry Truths Readers & Writers Should Know” I went over the (mostly) hard truths for people trying to write books. But it wasn’t all bad news. In that interview with publishing industry expert Jane Friedman, we also went over some easy ways to…

Visually pleasing, spooky, easy to execute — It’s nearly Halloween, so now’s the time to make things (extra) weird. If you’re throwing a party or simply want to get into the spooky spirit, here are some new vegan Halloween recipes I recommend. Each one on here is either tested by yours truly or on the top of…

I read many more, but these were my favorites — There are so many good books out there that it’s hard to know where to start choosing your next read. I rely on the book recommendations of friends and other avid readers to help me narrow the field, and try to pay it forward by recommending books I love on…

Note I didn’t say “cure” — It feels like another person now, the writer I was a year ago. I was finishing my memoir Open, and I did not experience writer’s block. I woke up most mornings at 5 a.m. just because I was that excited to write. Once I was under contract and deadline, I…

Don’t judge me — Lately, I’ve been moderately depressed. There’s a whole confluence of reasons I won’t get into here. Unsurprisingly, one of the side effects has been binge-watching more TV. I don’t endorse this strategy, because everything in moderation, and my brain is melting — but I also understand why the habit arises…

An interesting peek into what people most want help with — Well, I’ve made it through season 1 of my new podcast Help Existing. Thanks to listener donations to my Venmo @rachel-krantz and other forms of encouragement, I’ve decided to keep going on to season 2. Recently, I took a look at the data on my podcast hosting service Libsyn in…